


Hell Correspondence

by Emamel



Series: Shouldn't be [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Armin as Enma, Based on the series Jigoku Shoujo, Eren and Mikasa as his helpers, Gen, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Some death, Some small talk, Somewhat, With some pretty obvious changes, not really a crossover, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1392175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emamel/pseuds/Emamel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post a letter at midnight. Address it to the Hell Correspondence. They will take revenge on your behalf, for a very reasonable price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell Correspondence

**Author's Note:**

> I know I said updates would be sporadic, but as this was already mostly typed up, I couldn't help myself.

Urban legends are not uncommon. With such a concentrated population, with such broad backgrounds, it is little wonder that the folk tales of old have moved forward with the times, flitting from mouth to mouth in whispered secrets. The world is so much bigger than any of them can truly comprehend, and trapped in the prison of their safety, people have little better to do with their time than speculate.

Some are better known than others, and with so many people crammed together, jostling and fighting for space within the confines of the Walls, no-one is surprised that the Hell Correspondence becomes such a popular little myth.

Whoever had first dreamed it up may have been lost in wishful thinking, but in many of the slums, it has become a lifeline. Something to cling to when the nights turn bitter and the food runs scarce. Everyone has someone that they believe would be better off gone from their life, after all.

And really, Armin muses, he exists only to please.

 *****

Eren is old, far older than him; ancient, perhaps, but the boy never speaks of the time before they met. Any memory of it must be far away, swept out by the passing of time, the invasive nature of new thoughts and memories. He remembers meeting him for the first time – a child beyond the Wall, his strength evident in his fragility. The scarf about his neck caught the breeze in a sudden flash of bloody crimson. His smile near split his face in two.

Armin doesn’t know precisely what Eren is, and doesn’t care to find out. He is Armin’s, and Armin is his. They orbit one another, in a way, bound by the promise Eren never bothered to let loose to the air – that he will serve until the world burns to ash, for they will outlast it. There is no doubt about that. They will still exist, real and tangible, until there is no-one left to remember them, and even then they will continue together. For them, there is no other possible outcome – Armin is quite looking forward to it.

Then, who could blame him? Humans are very demanding, he thinks, sifting through the letters he’d received that night. Twenty in total, most of them inane. Hardly worth his time, and certainly not worth the effort. The pay-out is always good, but there is only so much that they can do. The request has to be good enough.

Not that the requests are even necessary, but there is something about the ritual that brings comfort to the clients – who is he to deny them? Besides, he muses, it separates out those that have will enough to call them.

By his side, Eren weaves reeds into a small basket – there is nothing that he can use it for, but it keeps him busy, keeps his mind occupied. The quiet sinks through him, deep into his blood, and pulses through his body. Somewhere outside, a bird sings in the midsummer heat; it is cool in the house, and the boy-shaped creatures curl towards one-another, around one-another until they could not be separated by any earthly force.

“Have we been to the sea yet?” He asks idly, picking at a loose thread on Eren’s cardigan. He can feel the rumble of Eren’s negative reply through his chest. Sometimes Eren will speak not with language, or even with a voice, but Armin understands.

“We should go there next,” he says, and this time, Eren’s response is distinctly affirmative.

 *****

They do not go to the sea – they go instead to a cabin in a forest. The request that is not comes like a blow to the chest, and they set out immediately. When Armin arrives, he finds Eren already waiting with a child by his side, his scarf tucked around her neck. Neither of them are bothered by the inferno behind them. The stench of woodsmoke and charred flesh sits heavy in the air; there are at least two bodies in there, he thinks, possibly more, and he’s not sure that he wants to know how Eren is connected to all of this. Armin doesn’t ask what Eren has done to the girl; Eren himself likely doesn’t know. But she is different now, the last vestiges of her humanity curling away with the smoke and the heat haze. Instead, he asks,

“Why?”

“Because she didn’t want us to avenge her,” Eren answers in his wordless way. “She wanted the strength to do it herself. I helped her be stronger than anyone else.”

Armin looks her over again – the sheet of black hair hides her face from scrutiny, but she is an open book. Already she has cast away her human life – whether she is suited to their life or not matters little. It is all that she has now.

Eren turns to her, his image shattering so briefly; it can be easy to forget that he is not a human child, not really. There is a glimpse of something just out of sight –

He smiles, wide and charming, and for all the world like any other nine-year-old begging sweet pastries from their mother. His teeth are stained red by the reflection of the flames, or Armin’s imagination. His eyes are green until they are gold, the chaos a very mirror of the blaze that he created.

“Mikasa,” he says. “This is my Armin.” It is how they have always referred to one another – to an outsider, it likely sounds unnecessarily possessive, but to them it is absolutely, perfectly necessary. There is no word for what they are to one another – not that it matters. Eren is not using his words. Mikasa nods as though she understands. Maybe she does. It is hard to tell when half of her face is obscured by Eren’s scarf.

Armin nods kindly, though his thoughts race on ahead. “Hello Mikasa,” he says. He sounds polite, at least.

“Hello Armin,” she returns. Her voice is flat, but her eyes are deep and murky. A bog to catch unwary travellers, to drag them down and fill their lungs until their life drifts away. She will do well, if she has the stomach for it.

Besides. She can understand Eren.

 *****

“Eren,” Mikasa calls from where she sits on the riverbank. Her feet just brush the water. Eren doesn’t bother glancing up from the hardwood he is whittling – it is not a good wood for carving, but he seems content enough. His hands are quick on the blade, deft and light. All around him is a nest of curled shavings.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.” Armin doesn’t look at her face; he keeps his eyes fixed on the jar in his hands, critically eyeing the soul within. It is pale, curling sickly like old smoke, and nearly useless, but it is rightfully his now. Might as well keep it, he supposes – every little helps. The name is nearly illegible with age and the thousands of times he has turned it over in his hands, but the name is there and he doesn’t need to read it to know what it says. _Grisha Jaeger_.  He can’t even remember the revenge the man had asked of them now, or whom it was against; not that it matters. A soul is a soul and it is now his to do with as he sees fit.

Eren hums a vague response, brushing back locks of hair that have escaped the red string he uses to tie it back. It’s long again, drifting into his eyes and catching at the corners of his mouth. They can change their appearances as easily as breathing, but for some reason Eren seems to like growing out his hair and cutting it back like a human.

There is a small mountain of letters building up on the table, but Armin is in no mood to read them. Sex, violence, betrayal, petty disagreements, the list goes on and on – there is little that he hasn’t seen before, very few things that could shock him. Revenge is a very human notion; Armin has no interest in it beyond his own gain.

“Eren?” Armin calls lightly, tossing the jar from one hand to the other. He could throw it away right now – it would be lost to the water and he’d never have to see it again. He won’t do it. But he could.

“Yes?”

“Will you fetch my letters?”

Eren’s smile is all-consuming and terrible, full of the innocent cruelty of a child; even Armin can sometimes forget that he is so very old.

“Yes.”

 *****

“You summoned me.”

It is his standard greeting – he could do this in his sleep by now. Nothing ever really changes. The places, the people, the reason for calling him, they are all inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Everyone that summons him does so with one outcome in mind. They want their revenge, and they want him to get his hands dirty for them.

“You’re the Hell Boy?” This reaction is almost scripted and he smiles faintly to himself. The straw doll in his hands thrums with life – Mikasa’s life – though it will go unnoticed by the girl that called him. He hands it over.

“If you truly wish for revenge, simply pull the red thread. Doing so will bind you into a contract with me.” This is the part that he hates the most, he thinks. It is rare that a human will have any concept of exactly what they are agreeing to when they pull the thread; mostly, he thinks that they just don’t care. The promise of a delayed consequence, of not having to repay him until after death is sweet. Enticing, even. It draws people in, people still young enough to believe that death will never come for them. Young enough, or foolish enough. Or too far gone to care.

Eren’s laugh is soundless in his ears, but the pressure it creates is immense.

“I will ferry the recipient of your revenge straightaway to Hell – and, in return, your soul will belong to me.”

The girl barely reacts; stares down at the doll clutched between shaking hands. It seems her mind is set already – her face is carved in hard lines, gaunt and pale from too many winters with too little to eat. Armin remembers her request well. Her village has so few resources, and what they do have is swiftly taken from them. She would stop the man slowly killing her family. A noble cause.

“Though that won’t be until after you die,” Eren points out. He is angry, beneath his amusement. Furious at the man that has done this, that has stolen away this girl’s childhood, and for what? A few coins, at best. An angry Eren is a sight to behold – unstoppable, vicious, and still far more merciful than the fate that awaits his victims.

She takes mere seconds to decide. The thread drifts away on the wind – Armin and Eren follow, with Mikasa close behind.

A new jar will be waiting for them when they return home. Empty and beautiful, it will catch the light in a thousand colours, a name printed bold as brass along the side.

_Sasha Braus._

 *****

Starved corpses, dragging themselves across the ground, clutching at his ankles and crying out for mercy. He hides in a darkened storeroom, the stench of cured meat thick in his lungs. There is nothing else there with him, but still he covers his mouth and holds his breath. The shaking in his limbs will not abate, but he is safe now, and all he has to do is _wake up_.

Before him, a set of glowing green eyes open, followed by the curl of a smile, flashing sharp teeth that click as the thing tries to speak. Another hand replaces his own across his mouth, and he swallows his own shriek, swallows his own tongue.

_Why? Why me? What have I done?_

The green eyes blink once and withdraw. The hand remains over his mouth, dragging him down into a mockery of an embrace. He can smell smoke and blood.

“Did you hear that, Armin?” The mouth moves in time with the words, but the voice comes from all around him before being swallowed by the dark. There is a whisper of cloth against skin, the quiet breaths of another human, and he would cry with relief, if only these demons would let him. The human steps forwards out of the shadows, blue eyes leaving a burning afterimage in their wake – his heart stills in his chest.

“Well done, Eren, Mikasa,” the boy says, his bell-voice ringing. The demons appear at his side, taking the form of children with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. The boy-demon’s hands are curled into claws and bloodied where he had taken the form of the starving things before.

The man is so terrified, he likely won’t remember what comes immediately next. It is, Armin thinks, a fitting revenge.

*****

The three of them feel it when Wall Maria falls. They feel the sudden _stop-jolt-start_ of so many deaths – and still so many more to come – when the titans begin to enter their territory. Though their home doesn’t exist on quite the same plane, it is still a personal affront. Every human life lost is a human life wasted. For so many midnights after, they receive countless letters from so many survivors. It is hard to know what to do with them all. Most of them are requests that can be fulfilled, anyway – even they cannot simply ferry the titans into Hell. Eren hums thoughtfully when Armin complains.

“You know,” he says. “I always wanted to be a soldier.”

 *****

Armin sees their mark on the chest of many of his classmates – he vaguely recalls each of their jars, empty and waiting. Many of them will be filled soon, he thinks. The life expectancy of a new recruit is distressingly one.

One by one, the jars fill up.

 *****

They are recognised by many, though those that know them say nothing. There is an implicit trust that they share; after all, all of those that know them are in their debt.

It makes for strange dynamics, though. He, Eren and Mikasa are all but inseparable when given the choice, and he knows that it does not go unnoticed. Though none of them in are any true danger from the titans, it does not mean that they are willing to be apart from one another for any period of time.

There are several recruits that seem to understand. They cover for the three of them as best they can, lying to their superiors when there is business to be taken care of.

Training suits Eren and Mikasa – it is something to focus them, something to pour their endless strength and will into. Armin, on the other hand, finds that he relishes the mental challenge, loves the stratagems and the wealth of learning that the military provides, even if the subject matter is somewhat limited. They train, they learn, they drag sinners to Hell and they make friends. Human friends, for the first time that any of them can remember.

It makes the _stop-jolt-start_ that much harder to stomach the second time around.

 *****

Armin doesn’t worry overmuch when Eren loses his leg; it is only a leg, after all, and it is hardly a severe wound by their standards – what does concern him is the concern of their teammates when Eren later re-joins them, as whole and wonderful as he ever was.

It will cause them grief later, no doubt, but for now they have bigger problems. Eren’s bloodlust may have felled a number of titans, but still they continued to swarm into the city. Armin’s mind leapt from possibility to possibility, and when he leapt along with them, he felt secure in the knowledge that Eren and Mikasa would be following close behind.

 *****

“Touch my Eren,” he says gazing around at the crowd and spotting so many faces that he knows, so many chests marked beneath military uniforms. “And know that I will drag your souls to the furthest corners of Hell, and know that your screams for mercy will go unheeded until Hell itself collapses around you.”

 *****

They fight, they live on, they explore the outside world. The Scouting Legion is kind; Armin owns so many of them already.

They travel, far beyond the Walls, to places that the titans have barely touched. They see the ocean, as vast and unknowable as Eren’s eyes and the void that lies behind them.

They live on.

One by one, the jars fill up.


End file.
